


Mirror and Stone

by Ossobuco



Series: Mahariel 'verse [1]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Dalish Origin, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 19:30:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ossobuco/pseuds/Ossobuco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As night falls, Lyna Mahariel prepares to leave her clan for Ostagar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror and Stone

**Author's Note:**

> Arelan is [SakuraTsukikage](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SakuraTsukikage)'s Mahariel, Lyna's younger brother.

The sun had long set and the Sabrae clan's camp was dark, the trees groaning and shifting in the cooling night air. Lyna listened to their muttering and felt her stomach clench with envy. Hahren Paivel had said once that the trees were sometimes jealous of the People, for the elvhen had legs and could move and travel as they pleased, but—Lyna thought—a tree never had to worry about being forced to leave its loved ones. An uprooted tree simply died.

Unable to sleep, she had begun preparing for the journey that she and Arelan would make the following morning. The shemlen, Duncan, had said he would take them to a place called Ostagar and that there would be a battle. She didn't know what she would need, aside from her arms and armor, and besides, she didn't _have_ many things. It was not the way of the Dalish to possess things that were not for the benefit of the clan. She had her sword, her shield, her bow and fletching supplies; she had her armor, buckskin leather and ironwood as all hunters wore, and a set of clothes for when armor was not necessary. She had her belt knife, a small piece each of whetstone and flint, a thin ironwood blade for her scalp, a thick pelt cloak for cold weather.

She had a round, grey stone that she had found in a riverbed just before she'd come of age. It was the size of her palm, polished by the running water so that it was quite flat and smooth, and in the center of it was a blood-red ammonite, a perfect spiral. When she had showed it to the Keeper, the old woman had smiled and said that it meant good luck—that it was the eye of a Creator watching out for her. She had kept it all these years, but to take it out of the forest and into human lands seemed wrong, as if she'd be stealing something that belonged to the People, or the Creators, or the land itself.

Outside the aravel, a few hunters stood around the remains of the campfire, chatting in low voices; whatever they were saying was lost in the muttering of the trees. They, too, would be leaving come morning, but they would go with their friends and families and children, their things all collected in aravels rather than in a doeskin satchel, guided by the halla and the Keeper's magic rather than by a giant, bearded human who smelled like iron and smoke and many other things that Lyna couldn't name.

What would it be like to live among shemlen? What would they think of her and Arelan? Would they be frightened, as the humans they sometimes found in the woods were, or would it be different when there were so many more of them? Did shemlen tell stories, or sing, or dance? What did they talk about? What did they eat? Was it really true that they lived in the same place all their lives? 

She sat on the floor, holding the little satchel to her chest, and took a deep breath. Tanned hides, the spring growth of the pines, the ever-present halla musk—would she ever smell them again?

From beyond the door, she heard the sound of footsteps shuffling on damp twigs and loam. It couldn't be Arelan, certainly, for he would not pause on the threshold of his own aravel; it was not another hunter, for their steps were far quieter. She stood and pulled aside the deerskin that covered the entrance.

Merrill blinked back at her with her shining, startlingly green eyes. “Oh,” she said, folding her hands together anxiously and glancing away. “ _Abelas_ , if I'm disturbing you, you're probably so busy, but I wanted to say—well, I know we'll say goodbye tomorrow morning, but—I wanted to say it anyway, now, without so many others around.”

“You aren't disturbing me.” Lyna held the skin out of the way, and Merrill stepped inside on dainty feet, her weight on her toes as if she expected to be sprung upon by some predator at any moment.

“Oh, good,” Merrill sighed. “I'm sorry, it's silly of me, but it's just so unusual, all of this. I know we've not seen much of each other, but you and Arelan have always been so kind to me—oh, I'm rambling.” She laughed very softly, a nervous, fluting sound like a finch's song. “I'm not very good at saying goodbye.”

Lyna sat again; Merrill sank down next to her, drew a sudden breath, and blurted, “I've made you something.” She glanced down at her hands, back to Lyna's eyes, and then down again as she started searching the pockets of her robes. “One for you and one for Arelan, actually. By the Dread Wolf, what did I do with them—ah!” A hesitant smile grew on her lips as she pulled something from one of her pockets—a pair of objects that Lyna couldn't identify in the darkness until Merrill pressed one of them into Lyna's hands.

She held it up to the faint light of the window, at the same time noting smell and shape and texture. It was a little handmade pouch of velvety-soft leather, sewn along the sides and tied at the top with a rawhide cord; it smelled slightly of tannin, more strongly of cedar bark and calamus and rosehips, and inside it she could feel the bits of dried herb and wood through the thin material. It was just the right size to wear in a pocket or under one's armor.

Merrill's eyes glittered hopefully. “Do you like it? I chose the plants because they remind me of you... Arelan's is a bit different, his is sage instead of sweet flag. I just thought... if you're really leaving, you should at least have the smell of the woods to take with you.” It was hard to tell in the shadows of the aravel, but Lyna thought Merrill might be blushing. 

“It's perfect, Merrill.” Lyna felt her own cheeks grow warm, and she couldn't hide a smile. “I'll wear it always. _Ma serannas_.”

The color on Merrill's cheeks was obvious, now, even in the darkness. “You really like it?” she asked, her eyes alight with growing pride. “Oh, I'm glad. I've enchanted them a bit. The smell should last a long time, so no matter how long you're away or how many adventures you have, you won't forget about us—no matter how long it is before you can come home.”

Merrill's voice seemed to waver at that, and the thought made Lyna's throat feel tight and thick. Duncan had said that she and Arelan might never return, and to hope otherwise seemed foolish, which Merrill must have known—but still, the young woman wore a smile, and Lyna could take comfort in that.

“Ma serannas, Merrill,” she said again. The fact that Merrill had thought of them and gone to the trouble of making them such gifts touched her with its sweetness, and at the same time left a bitter taste, as if she'd cut into a piece of fruit only to find it rotten beneath the skin. Merrill's kindness was yet another thing they were leaving behind.

“Would you give this one to Arelan for me?” She offered the second pouch to Lyna. “And tell him ma serannas for all his kind words to me, and that I'll miss talking with him.”

Lyna nudged her hand away; Merrill stiffened slightly at the contact of their fingers. “He'll be back soon. Stay, and tell him yourself.”

Merrill's eyes went a bit wide, almost as if she were startled. “Oh, I would, but I can't. I... er, I have some things to do before we leave.”

“What do you need to do so late at night?”

“Ah—you know,” she said with another birdlike laugh, though it was too quick and higher in her throat. “Just some things for the Keeper. Last minute... things.”

Lyna frowned. Merrill sometimes seemed jumpy around her, but she never told outright lies. Like most of their people, she saw the value in being upfront about matters, and her evasiveness made an uneasy sensation settle in Lyna's stomach. “Merrill,” she asked, locking eyes with the woman purposefully. “What is it that you need to do?”

“Lyna... oh, I shouldn't have tried to hide it from you.” Merrill sighed quickly, lightly. “The Keeper doesn't want me to, but I just can't leave it. I'm—I'm going to collect the pieces of the mirror.”

A sudden chill gripped Lyna like a draft through the open windows, even though the night was warm for spring. They still didn't understand what powers the mirror might possess, even broken. Who else might fall prey to it, if it was brought among their clan? “No, Merrill. It—” she swallowed “—it killed Tamlen. It could have killed Arelan, or me. Leave it in pieces as it deserves.”

“Abelas,” Merrill said again, and there was genuine sorrow—genuine sadness—in her shining eyes. “Abelas, Lyna, truly, but I have to try. Duncan's wrong about it—there was Elvish writing on it. It was something of ours, long ago. If I study it, maybe I can learn why it did this to you. Maybe the Keeper and I can find a cure.”

“Merrill...” Lyna felt a pain deep in her chest. She wished it were possible; she realized with vague disgust that if there _were_ a chance that Merrill's efforts could save them, she wasn't sure that she would be so resolute in trying to dissuade her, whatever the risk might have been to the clan or to Merrill herself. “Even if you do, Arelan and I will still have become Grey Wardens. We may not be able to return.”

Merrill stared back at Lyna for a moment, then blinked, glanced away. “I... I know. I'm being foolish. But—you feel as I do about our old ways. Don't you? Don't we have a duty to learn whatever we can?”

“Not if it risks what little we still have.”

“I have to.” Merrill's voice was firm, even as she glanced down at her bare feet, and Lyna knew there was no changing her mind, much as the thought of the mirror remaining among their clan repulsed her. “Abelas. I'll just... it—it's late. I'd better go.”

“Wait.” Lyna said on impulse. She reached for the grey stone, cool and smooth, the ammonite a dark circle at its center. Merrill started as Lyna pressed it into her palm.

“What—?” Her eyes went wide as she held it into the beam of moonlight, turning it over and running her fingertips along the edges. “I remember when you found this,” she said, breathless with sudden delight. “Oh, Lyna, I can't take this from you.”

“It doesn't belong with me anymore,” Lyna replied. “It should stay with the People.” 

A little smile appeared on Merrill's lips again—sad, but only for a moment—and she held the stone against her chest with both palms. “Ma serannas, lethallan. I'll keep it safe for you.” 

Lyna smiled for the first time since the cave; it felt strange and stiff on her lips. Merrill blushed suddenly, and after a moment of visible hesitation, leaned in and pressed a kiss to Lyna's forehead, delicate and brief. 

“ _Dareth shiral, lethallan_ ,” she said, pulling back quickly. “Mythal watch over you.”

Lyna watched her get to her feet, a bitter feeling in her chest again. “May the Dread Wolf never catch your scent, Merrill.” 

The Keeper's First slipped the stone into her pocket and went quietly out the deerskin flap. Lyna shut her eyes and listened to her footsteps until they faded among the softly sighing trees.


End file.
